bite of bitter
by VickyVicarious
Summary: Iris struggles to cope with how important Edgeworth is to Phoenix.


**Prompt:** Phoenix is straight and has a girlfriend (anyone who isn't Oldbag, Trucy or Pearl is fine). But he also has a really deep friendship with Edgeworth, with strong platonic feelings. After all, this is the boy who inspired him to be an attorney, the man he set out to save, the man who jumped on a plane to be by his side when he was in danger.

His girlfriend loves Phoenix very much and wants to make a life with him. And yet, there is Miles. Someone who holds as much of Phoenix's heart as she does. It's almost like they're a package deal. How does she cope?

* * *

He kisses her hello, slides their fingers together. Her eyes fall shut, she sinks into the warm touch, lingers after.

"Hey," Phoenix whispers, after a moment. Iris can hear the smile in his voice. She squeezes his hand.

"Hi," she returns, equally soft, equally sweet.

Opens her eyes after a moment to smile at Edgeworth over Phoenix's shoulder, extending the greeting to him with a tiny nod.

He returns the gesture, then clears his throat slightly. Phoenix draws back, already turning to his friend, and Iris -

lets go of his hand.

Tucks hers deep into her pockets, where neither of the lawyers can see them clenching into fists.

 **-xxx-**

Phoenix only visited her in prison because Edgeworth insisted on it. He'd been bitter, the first time he sat down in that metal chair opposite the glass window keeping them apart. He'd been very quiet, so she was too, heart aching at the sight of his head bowed low, his jaw clenched tight.

The hurt was an unspoken truth, the _betrayal_ radiating off of him, tying her voice into knots. This was everything she'd never wanted, and she didn't want to tell him anything more for fear of hurting him further.

But she'd promised Edgeworth. He'd only protected her for Phoenix's sake, and made her promise, and when Phoenix finally took a deep breath and looked up at her, she gave him the truth he deserved. She forced her mouth open, thinking of Edgeworth's drawn face, and fulfilled her promise. Unraveled every lie she'd ever told him, one by one.

Rehashing all of that hurt them both, horribly. They couldn't do it in one visit, or even five, or ten. It took a long time, piecemeal. They both cried more than once.

But at the end of it all, Phoenix knew everything she had done and _why_. When she told him how she'd felt about him, how she never stopped feeling, he knew that was true too.

"I loved you," he told her. "I - was stupid, and. I didn't notice a lot of things, but - it was _you_ , not..."

Her heart was a cup full to the brim, sloshing out the sides and splattering down to the floor.

Phoenix swallowed hard, and asked her if he could tell her _his_ story. They both knew he didn't owe it to her the way she had him. They'd both heard her present tense and his past. They both knew - but he offered anyway, and she'd never not accept, so he kept visiting.

Told her the story of his life without her - the story of his life with Miles Edgeworth.

 **-xxx-**

On her birthday, he wakes her up with breakfast in bed. They laugh together over the crumbs that get lost in the sheets, then lose themselves there too for a while. After, he brushes her hair out with gentle strokes, one hand holding her head still.

Iris shivers, nudges back to lean against his chest. He holds her up, scolds her lightheartedly for getting in the way of his brushing, sending them into a friendly argument that involves a lot of laughter.

She lets him win. Normally, it's the other way around, and something about that thought pleases her, she holds onto it. Tucks it into her heart for later, feeling flushed and light and strangely young as he finishes with a flourish, holding up the mirror to show her the clumsy braids he's produced.

Afterwards, he goes to work. They kiss at the door, and it feels so domestic - not just feels, _is_ , and she can't stop smiling as she locks up behind herself. She goes to work too - it's simple, manual labor, uncomplicated. Iris is a former felon with only a GED to her name; she works as a maid at the Gatewater Hotel. Her job doesn't save lives, but it's _hers_ , she is honestly immersed in the real world for the first time in her life. Every time she turns over a sheet, refolds the towels, leaves a mint on newly-plumped pillows and closes the door to a clean room behind her, she feels refreshed. The work is tiring, but hardly impossible after all her years with Bikini, and the physical labor makes everything seem _real_ in a way that Phoenix often doesn't.

When she gets home in the evening, it's to a nice dinner, and soft music, and good wine. Phoenix is nervous the whole meal, sweating noticeably, and stuttering, and biting his lips after staring at her too long. It's sweet. It's so sweet she rubs her fingers together under the table, finding the callouses and reminding herself that this is not a dream.

"O-Okay, I can't wait until after dessert," Phoenix blurts, and trips out of his chair to kneel next to hers. There's a moment of silence as they stare at each other, eyes wide. For a moment, the weight of history presses down on them with a smothering mass, and Iris feels choked, undeserving, _terrified_ of what he's about to say -

But he says it, and she says yes without a moment to spare, and he slides the ring onto her finger with a smile as absolving as it is loving. The ring is a simple band with three inlaid stones, clear and shining, understated yet elegant. She _loves_ it. Iris stares down at her hand, eyes growing blurry as the moments pass, feels light and bright enough to float away.

"It's so beautiful," she breathes. Phoenix laughs, embarrassed.

"Well, Edgeworth picked it out. You're lucky, I almost bought one with this huge gem, and uh, this filigree thing - I don't know, apparently it was really gaudy, so." He grins, picking up her hand and kissing the ring. "Uh, thank him, not me."

A ring like that doesn't sound her style at all. Not to mention, anything large would have gotten in the way at work - she'd have to take it off almost all day, almost every day. Iris much prefers something like this, simple and good.

She reaches her right hand up to run over the three little diamonds. Feels something twist bitterly in her gut.

 **-xxx-**

They spent a lot of time in the prison talking about Edgeworth. It wasn't something they usually set out to do - it happened incidentally, and often, Phoenix casually dropping references to the man into his speech as though it were habit. She didn't doubt it was. Phoenix was like that about people he loved.

She didn't mind.

Iris liked Edgeworth, as much as possible given their very limited interactions in person. Still, she felt she knew him well, just from Phoenix's stories. She could picture him as a child, arm flung out and a stern expression on his face as he defended little Phoenix; giggled at the thought of him getting secretly excited over Steel Samurai merchandise; respected his strength in ever coming back after what Manfred von Karma and Gant did to him. Hearing those stories, even in an incomplete form as Phoenix clearly avoided breaking his friends' confidence on certain matters, made Iris believe she understood the prosecutor in a way. Not nearly so well as Phoenix, but a little, enough.

More importantly, she understood him in regards to Phoenix. Secondhand renditions of his bravery, his pain, his determination to find the truth, the many ways he had and still did inspire Phoenix: hearing these things helped Iris understand who the man before her was now. How he'd gotten there. Why.

It would not be a lie to say that she and Phoenix rekindled their relationship on a fuel of Edgeworth. His friendship with Phoenix was the reason she was even still here; her promise to him was the reason she'd begun talking in the first place, without which she finally understood they'd never have really healed. Phoenix's stories of his friend and their adventures together were what allowed them to bond, to grow gradually comfortable together again.

They didn't only talk of the prosecutor, far from it, but when he spoke about his friend Phoenix was _alive_ in a way that was beautiful to watch. Iris couldn't help but notice how well they complimented one another, even second-hand. They made excellent rivals, better friends. They'd saved one another so many times, in myriad ways - if she'd believed in such things, she would think they had been made to fit together.

Iris was happy for Phoenix, to have someone so special in his life.

 **-xxx-**

Their wedding reception is interrupted by a desperate client, bursting onto the dance floor and begging for help. His hands are bloody, his eyes desperate, and he keeps insisting he didn't do it, he didn't do anything, please please _help_ until the police storm in and drag him away under arrest for murder.

"Oh, geez," Maya sighs next to Iris, as they watch Phoenix and his best man interrogating Detective Gumshoe together. "What a kicker, right before the cake."

Phoenix looks irritated, flinging his hands up in the air with a scowl. Edgeworth frowns, touches a hand to his elbow, and Iris watches as her new husband drops his shoulders, heaves a sigh. He turns to his friend and they become engaged in an intense conversation.

"You should go join them," Iris tells her cousin. "You're his assistant, he's going to need your help."

"I - only if he actually takes the case," Maya says dubiously. "I know Athena's already got one, but. It's your wedding, I mean-"

"He should take it," Iris says, then shakes her head, corrects herself: "He's taken it already. Look at them."

And there must be something in her voice, something hidden too poorly this time, because Maya steps in front of her, blocking her view, and her forehead is creased in a rare frown.

"Hey, Iris, are you... okay?" she asks. The bride swallows, locking back the urge to take a step sideways so she can watch Phoenix and Edgeworth again.

"Yes," she says, with a laugh. "I just - I'm a little disappointed, yes, but," she shrugs, "it's okay. This is what he does. It's fine, it's - it's _good_."

"It's annoying, is what it is," Maya mumbles, but she seems appeased. Steps forward to give Iris a tight hug, grinning wide as she pulls back. "Don't worry, I'll help him solve it quick so you can go on your honeymoon!"

She's off, moving swiftly across the room before Iris can remind her that they don't even have a honeymoon planned; neither she or Phoenix able to afford a trip right now. Maybe, if this client can pay well, they could schedule something.

Phoenix returns to apologize and kiss her, and she's quick to tell him it's fine, to urge him to go, reminds him that she loves this about him, too. None of it is a lie, none of it explains the almost desperate feeling lurking under her skin, the way she has to force her fingers to let go of his hand so he will step away.

She watches him leave with Edgeworth and Maya, and she's _glad_ , for that desperate man's sake, for Phoenix being who he is and having the friends he does. She goes home with Trucy, and lets her daughter give her a magic show to cheer her up, and it works, it does.

She waits in bed for Phoenix to get home, staring at the ceiling as the hours tick by. Gradually, a strange sense of calm fills her, fingers to toes.

She closes her eyes and thinks about Phoenix talking with Edgeworth across the room. The image is very clear, Edgeworth's hand touching her new husband's elbow. It feels like a summary, simple and elegant.

She accepts it. Makes herself do that. Takes the warmth in her throat, that greedy ache in her bones, and swallows them down deep, deep as they will go. Locks them up in a heart-shaped necklace, because that image is very clear too. She saves these things away, now, before they can grow too large and ruin the life she and Phoenix have built.

When her husband comes home, it's late but she's still awake. She smiles to see him, and he smiles back apologetically, tips his head down onto her shoulder with a groan.

"How does it look?" Iris asks, reaching up to card her fingers through his hair.

"Hopeless," Phoenix sighs against her. He sounds tired. "But, we're working on it."

His arms come up to hold her, and she wraps hers around him too, and it is good as always. Better, because he calls her _wife_ and grins giddily throughout, loses his rhythm laughing because he's thinking about the fact that they're _married_ now. She completely understands, she feels it too, she _loves him_ and this is dreamlike already. This is far better than good enough.

A little bitter makes the sweetness bearable, she tells herself. Makes it real.

 **-xxx-**

She was the one to contact Edgeworth after Phoenix was disbarred. He'd stopped visiting her entirely for two and a half months, and when he returned it was as a shell. She felt scared for him, didn't know what to say or do to help. She was stuck in prison, there wasn't anything she _could_ do, and Phoenix clearly needed more support. The only light left in his eyes was when he spoke of the little girl he'd taken in, but even then it was so dim compared to before.

So she called Edgeworth, and told him everything, and asked him to please come back.

"I think you are the one he needs the most right now," Iris said, and every word felt measured, weighted in a way she'd never considered before. "Please, he needs your help."

"I'll charter a flight," Edgeworth replied. He paused before hanging up, hesitated several seconds. "...Thank you, Iris. I think he needs you too."

She didn't say anything to that, and the prosecutor hung up, and she kept holding the phone up to her ear, listening to the slow beeps of the dead line.

There was something dark and doubting growing inside of her. She pictured it as a vine, entwined round her and Phoenix and Edgeworth too, or maybe just her, or maybe just them. She thought about Phoenix turning his life around after what she did to him in college, aiming his heart at a long-lost friend instead in hopes of saving him. She thought about them saving people together, saving each other. She thought about Phoenix's head hung low that first visit.

He'd held her hand not long ago. Not really, the glass between them made that impossible, but he'd placed his hand down on the table and waited. When she put her hand in the same spot on her side, heart beating fast, he looked at her with a smile she recognized from an innocent boy a long time ago. They'd both blushed, and it had felt like a start, a new beginning, something whole and never to be broken -

Phoenix wasn't like that anymore, not since losing his badge. She wouldn't be able to have anything like that anymore, not alone. But Edgeworth, he might be able to save his childhood friend again. He might be the only one able to help Phoenix.

There were parts of Phoenix she could never reach, she realized. Parts reserved for Edgeworth alone.

Iris put the phone back in its cradle a little too hard. There was a bitter taste on her tongue. She swallowed it down, refused to let it linger.

Promised herself she would not be selfish.


End file.
